


Dialogues Between the Guardians of Justice and a Condemned Man

by magistralucis (Solitary_Shadow)



Series: The Consolations of Philosophy [5]
Category: Daft Punk
Genre: Abuse, Debasement of Human Beings, Depressing, Dialogue Heavy, Ethics, Existential Horror, Existentialism, Gross Injustice, Heavily Philosophical, Long, M/M, Mindfuck, Moral Philosophy, Morbid, Murder, Nightmare Sequence, PTSD, Personhood, Philosophy of Mind, Slash, Suicide, Surreal horror, Thesis, Trigger Warnings, Unreliable Narrator, survivor's guilt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-14
Updated: 2014-04-14
Packaged: 2018-01-19 07:48:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1461460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solitary_Shadow/pseuds/magistralucis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Electroma. Guy detonates Thomas, walks away, and turns himself in to the authorities. While waiting for a trial that may or may not come, he must hope for a great deal of things - but most important, he must hope that justice will be blind. An exploration of human justice, morality, suicide and personhood. [Guy POV, heavily angsty, really not a light read. Please heed warnings in tags.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dialogues Between the Guardians of Justice and a Condemned Man

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer: I do not know any of the members of Daft Punk, this is strictly a work of fiction and I do not profit from nor claim to represent true aspects of their lives in this story.**
> 
> Jesus christ where do I even start with this.
> 
> If you have read Tabula Rasa, one of my other fanfics - or hell, just anything in my 'Consolations of Philosophy' series - then you know that I have a tendency to ramble about philosophy. This is very much not a light read. It is dark, depressing, possibly audience-alienating; I think it is worth reading and that I have said important things within it, but it is a strange labyrinth of a fic/philosophical thesis and I would not blame you for finding it incomprehensible or offensive. Give me strength.

**Dialogues Between the Guardians of Justice and a Condemned Man - A Daft Punk Fanfiction**

\---------------------------------

_[Transcript No. 98257, reg. 30 Jun 2XXX, as follows:]_

.... Hello? Hello? Is anyone listening? Yes? Oh, thank you, thank you, I'm in serious trouble at the moment and I... what? All right, I'll... I'll slow down.  
My name? Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo. I'm thirty-five years old, Parisian in origin, and I just killed my beloved.

I'm right outside.  
No. No, I'm not at the phone box. I don't need a phone. Just... please... hear me out. Then come pick me up. I'm not going anywhere.

... Yes. It was entirely my fault. He wanted it done, but I did it, and I'm turning myself in. Yes, I do mean he. He and I, we were cast out for being ourselves. That's not unusual, right? People go through those things? I'm tired, I'm so tired - we set out without any provisions across the salt flats, we were walking for days out there without water, without anything, and at some point he couldn't carry on anymore. He stopped, he looked at me, and he asked me to help him die. I can't blame him for it. He was trying hard not to show it - he was always kind of expressionless, after all - but I could see, and...

I - I don't know. I think I wanted the two of us to carry on just a little further. Maybe I wilfully ignored him, or maybe I didn't fully understand just how much in despair he was-  
Look, I can't continue this right now, please come and get me. I'll tell you everything when I'm inside, just please don't leave me out here.

... What? I should finish? But don't you understand, it already is finished! It was finished once and for all yesterday afternoon. He stopped at some point and just told me he'd had enough, almost collapsing onto the ground, and I couldn't persuade him if my own life depended on it. "I'm useless to you now," he said, and gestured towards the gun that he wore slung over his back. "help me... help me to finish it, Guy, please, I can't take this one more day."

The weapon was cold in my hand, smooth and uncaring. I'd have to tug the lever just once and he'd be at peace forever - did I just say lever? No, no... I didn't mean that. I'm sorry. I'm really not thinking straight, that's why you ought to have taken me in... I think I stood there for an entire minute just staring at him, wondering if he was going to change his mind. But he didn't in the end. I had to do it because it was what he wanted and he mattered, don't you see?

"I love you," he whispered to me with his last breath, still in my arms. I smiled and stroked his hair for the last time. My tears fell onto his face and mingled with his.

"No you don't," I told him, very gently, and then I pulled the trigger.

_[End Transcript]_

\-----

"I have to say," the officer is saying as he scrutinizes the stapled pages of my confession in bemused disbelief. "that this is _really_ not what I was expecting."  
  
I know, officer. But isn't that life in a nutshell?  
It is nine thirty-six PM (Pacific Time Zone) on the thirtieth of June and I am still sitting here, covered with salty dust, two hours after being let into the police station. I don't hope to be walking out again any time soon. They've just typed up the transcript of my confession, and the first attempt to check the facts has just fallen flat; my sentiments on this matter are apparently not as clear to this officer as it is to me. "What made you fabricate some of those details? You just said that your companion was a robot, he _couldn't_ have had hair nor could he have cried."  
  
"It made sense at the time. We both sought to be human and that's a part of why he died in the first place. We both needed and deserved humanity."  
  
He stares at me as if I were crazy, waiting for an explanation. Explanation of what, though? It's already too broad of an inquiry. Soon his gaze falters with the ticking of the clock, and he picks up his pen again with a sigh. "All right, let me start again. You are thirty-five years old."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Manufactured in Paris."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"And you claim to have killed your companion, who you've stated is Unit TB3, otherwise known as Thomas Bangalter. Of a different design to you, he was also manufactured in Paris and was a year younger than you."  
  
"That is correct."  
  
"Where exactly were you two cast out from?"  
  
I consult the internal GPS. "The Town of Independence."  
  
He snorts. "Oh, that place. I'm sorry you had to go through that. That's where Inyo County Jail is, see - some people ended up being incarcerated there and had to leave their robots behind, that's why it's a town full of robots at the moment. They're all waiting for their masters to come for them, or at least some of them were. Some won't ever see them because they ended up being shipped off elsewhere to prison," the pen taps lazily on the page and I stare at it, recalling the mob, wondering whether they'd reacted so viciously towards us because we'd stirred some kind of old memories within them. "not an awful arrangement, the state provides for them and have partial ownership of them so their skills don't go to waste."  
  
"We saw them performing marriages and living in households even before they ran us out, doesn't that mean that they're sentient?"  
  
"I doubt it, it's mostly mimicry, what they're doing. They keep out human _intruders_ and protect their own kind. Officials of the county and approved visitors can just walk past."  
  
Mimicry. Is that the entirety of our behaviour to human beings? He wasn't there, he has no idea of the ferocity with which the townspeople approached us. "Though I can understand that it must have been a shock to your friend, they're extremely defensive of their colony," he's still saying. "I haven't asked this before - but this is far from the first time you've, um, _tried to be human?_ "  
  
"Yes. For the past ten years, at least. We began in Paris."  
  
The officer raises his eyebrows; whether in admiration or mockery I can't tell. It doesn't matter. "... Then you said you walked across the salt flats for a long time before killing him. You mention a gun, here - was it a gun?"  
  
"I think it's easier for you to watch what happened."  
  
Shut off my visual input for a while; my screen flickers and displays the final three or so minutes of my 'memory' with Thomas. I say memory, but it's more like recorded footage, both deeply faithful and deeply impersonal in what it shows. The officer leans forwards and watches the whole thing, jotting down a few quick notes on Thomas's appearance and behaviour before getting to the actual scene of the explosion. "Oh," he exclaims with a slight wince. "... so it wasn't a gun... but a trigger mechanism was involved... I see. Terrible business," a couple more lines are scribbled as I shut off the video and let my screen return to blankness again. "are his remains still there?"  
  
"Yes," I say, and display the co-ordinates of his grave. "he lies here."  
  
The officer notes that down - stares down at the pages - then slowly lowers his pen and the bundle of papers down. "I see," he says, and there's a somewhat-helpless tone in his voice. "and... what do you want us to do about this, exactly?"  
  
What a world we live in, where this still isn't obvious to people! "I am guilty. I'm turning myself in, I wish to be convicted."  
  
Robots were initially created to be subservient to mankind. _Initially._ It's still the dominant view, I believe, and in this case it allows the officer to believe that Thomas reacted the way he did purely because he was not meant to handle rejection for so long. He does not truly believe that I am here of my own will, nor that I am devastated, or even that Thomas was devastated; programming and mechanical logic, with a possible malfunction somewhere, is the extent of what he understands about this situation. Thomas's suffering to him is little more than a logic-or-programming error, and if I'm not wrong, that's what my state of mind is like to him right now.  
  
I'm not sure whether I can blame him for this, however.  
Isn't trying to talk about the mind in itself reductive, as limited and fragile language is? I doubt he could explain human motives much better, except by resorting to even more abstract notions as 'passion', 'emotion' or the ever-dreaded sliding scale of good and evil.  
  
I am not good. Nor am I evil. By their standards I do not merit praise or blame at all. But I don't see how humans are dissimilar to me, if that makes any sense.  
  
"We understand that you were the one to detonate Unit TB3."  
  
Our plight is _comprehensible_ to him, I can tell.  
  
"But... we don't see how that is any reason to _prosecute_ you. Your initial testimony was bizarre, true, but it's been corrected and what you did is simply not in violation of any laws, human or machine. You were two robots without an owner, you harmed no one but Unit TB3, and you said it was self-requested as it were; we can make a note of this case and report back to the place of his manufacture, but this is not a _crime._ "  
  
It just isn't _pitiable_ or _detestable_ , because what I have done possesses none of those qualities to him, and thus cannot be judged fairly. To him, to the authorities I have placed myself in the hands of and to the extent the human race, trying to judge what I did is like trying to judge the evils of a tsunami in a distant land; something far from the ideal has happened, but no one is responsible, no one _here_ has felt any effect, and therefore it must be allowed to exist without punishment.  
  
I have a feeling that I'd have been decommissioned already if this was a human being I'd killed. At least then I'd be a danger that they saw fit to stop, even if I'd been denied trial, and I'd have been safely put out of my misery.  
Sadly that is not the case and this is going to be a hard battle. Luckily, I'm confident that what I'm about to reveal next is going to buy me plenty of time.  
  
"I wouldn't be so confident that Thomas was _just_ a robot, officer."  
  
He blinks at me. "Oh?" he says, though without much interest - he clearly expects some kind of rhetoric about Thomas. Too bad, though, he's going to have to craft his own. I scan the area for bluetooth devices and see that his laptop will accept it, and nod towards it to draw his attention while I send two ready-made documents his way: a fifty-page PDF file holding information about Thomas's anatomy, and a single high-resolution image of his schematics. The latter will be sufficient for him right now. "what are those?"  
  
"The image. Please see for yourself."  
  
He does, as I wanted him to. A full minute passes before his eyes widen and he stares back at me with horror, as I expected him to. "And here's my own," I continue on as if I noticed nothing, sending two other documents - this time of my own schematics - and he doesn't even need to ask what it is as he checks them. "I think the two of us are... quite different to what you'd normally expect of robots, officer, and I don't think what the either of us did is easily dismissible because of that. These artifacts that we have, they belonged to a human being. And both he and I made ample use of them."  
  
"... Who did this to you? Who thought transplanting a brain and a heart to their robots was a good idea?"  
  
"Our owner. We had one when we were first made and bought, you'll find his details in both PDF files - though I'm afraid there's no way of reaching him otherwise, he's been dead for a while."  
  
The officer makes some kind of inarticulate sound at this fact, closing the lid of his laptop with a click and shoving it away, frowning and shaking his head as if he couldn't quite believe it. And yet he must know that it's the truth - a quick scan of myself would prove that enough, and for the moment I appear to have ensured my personal safety. Being considered broken, then being decommissioned and my parts being recyled without thought is a less than ideal situation for me, not when I have so many secrets within me to unleash. "Do you know why he did this?" he demands.  
  
"No," I say quietly. "and neither did Thomas. We tried searching through the earliest memories that we had for an answer and never could find one. Thomas's black box should still be amongst his remains, at the co-ordinates I gave you, and I could readily upload any files you'd be interested in. I don't even know if there's anything hidden deep inside me that I have no access to."  
  
That convinces him. He gets up, looking slightly shaken. "I'm going to need to hand this over to the higher-ups," he says, and gestures to the desktop computer next to him. "... and in the meanwhile, I'd like you to please upload all related audio-visual data in your storage, alongside text file logs of the communication you have shared with Unit TB3. As much of it as you have in store. If you wouldn't mind."  
  
He leaves me with naught but a curt nod, but I caught the implications behind what he said. _If I wouldn't mind._ An illusion of autonomy temporarily granted to me, combined with a well-timed absence from the room, just to make me more agreeable; I am theirs now, they're telling me that I technically don't have a choice in this matter whether if I _mind_ or not. A guard is standing by the door to prevent my escape, and there is very little stopping them from connecting me against my wishes and downloading anything - even if I _wanted_ to, I wouldn't be able to resist on that regard. Fortunately for them and me both, resistance is not my goal, and I have every intention of complying to their wishes. This is going to be an overnight job and after this it will be a longer stay.  
  
But that's all right. Time is less consequential to a robot than to a human being.  
  
The officer has left out the needed items on the table. It's a simple transfer so I'm not going to need anything more than a single cable; my charge is already quite low, however, and I don't want to risk burning out during the process, so I choose a Y-shaped USB cable and plug the two Standard-A ends into the computer tower, drawing more power from it than I could have otherwise. The thicker end is inserted into a port near my wrist, seldom used and usually covered up beneath a flap of silicone. Then I create a folder specially for everything I'm about to send - I have no admin rights here and the computer is deliberately free of any files that could be smuggled out - before leaning back on the chair and beginning the process, a robotic sigh escaping me.  
  
There's no particular reason why I had to use the port on my wrist. It's even kind of awkward, holding it still and exposed to air.  
I suppose I'm doing it because I feel like I'm being _tapped._ Of information, of my charge, my vitality - my _blood_ , even? Strange how things work out.  
  
The officer comes back in the meanwhile while I'm pondering all of this. "Detonators are built into every robot of your type," he holds up a remote. "now that you're in custody, I'm going to have to disable that. Can't risk it, you know?"  
  
I nod and turn my back on him, shrugging off the top half of my jacket and exposing the panel there. "Please do."  
  
A click of the remote. Something tight woven along the length of my spine seems to loosen; there goes my easy way out. (It wasn't as if I could reach the lever anyway, it would just be sitting there taunting me.) "There you go," he says, and sits back down, taking out a large brown paper bag from his drawer. Inside it are three sandwiches on grain bread, crusts still on, and my visual sensors indicate that they have layers of green apple, cheddar cheese, some mustard and what looks like prosciutto ham inside. As for taste, I can't comment. "I haven't had dinner. If you wouldn't mind."  
  
"Of course not."  
  
"Do you need any... um, I mean, _status report?_ "  
  
Now that's a request (command?) I haven't heard in a while. I flash my battery status (in the red but stable) on my screen. "Thirty-five percent, file transfer six percent complete, all Laws present, all other systems operational." ( _Barely_ , I'd like to add, but don't.)  
  
"That's a bit too low, isn't it?" he rummages through his desk drawer and pulls out a cable and charger, the exact kind that I need. "not the first time we've had to deal with robots here, though never in this kind of capacity. Mostly to keep them well fueled while we deal with their masters instead. Go on."  
  
Me and Thomas left our chargers in our car. I wonder how it's doing now. It's not like we left behind a spare set of keys or anything. But enough; that kind of thinking can't help me now. I reach down and connect the charger to the wall socket, plugging myself in, feeling a warmth that I haven't felt in three days washing over me. It's energizing, though I really wish it wouldn't feel that way. "Better?" the officer asks. He's greatly enjoying the sandwich from what I can tell - I would rather have the pleasure of being able to eat to refuel rather than _this_ , but there's nothing I can do about the facts of the matter.  
  
"Yes. Thank you very much."  
  
"Good," he says, pauses to swallow, and takes a sip out of his coffee. "... the more I think about it the more confusing this whole thing is. You and your friend, I mean. How did you two get along? What did you do to become so supportive of each other?"  
  
 _What a strange question to be asking,_ I think to myself, though I think that sentiment is visible in my body language. (Perhaps - the notion is still quite foreign to me, I must admit.) We've questioned a great deal of things whilst together, but I don't think we ever questioned our bonding to the other - it wasn't just programming, I'm sure. We certainly didn't wake up together when first created, and we weren't as close at the start. But before I can say anything, the officer is carrying on.  
  
"Most of the people I interview want to kill me. If they didn't come in wanting to kill someone already, by the time I'm done with them, they sure want to. It's very seldom directed towards me, too, that's the real tragedy of it - they're angry and more often than not afraid, and regardless of what they've done, they need someone to hate and blame and I don't think there's any disputing raw feelings. They shouldn't have committed a crime, but there's no denying the _quality_ of what they felt or continue to feel; like, if you hate piercings on people, _you hate them_. Full stop. No one takes that hatred away from you. You just aren't allowed to actively treat other people like dirt because of your personal feelings. That's why I can't bring myself to blame them for hating me. I need to go home to my family and relax. I need to be with my friends and relax. I need to be with my loved ones so I can be sane. Can't live with people but can't live without them," he pauses again, picking at the crust of his sandwich. "... I'm not really sure why I'm telling you this. It's all kind of weird. Today's been weird for me and you both, probably."  
  
"... Would you prefer to carry on?"  
  
He shrugs, though he seems open to the idea. "Mm. Though I shouldn't be complaining, there are people in this station who've been through even worse. Hardly just me who has to deal with that kind of thing. People don't really understand how taxing this job is. It's really not that enjoyable seeking out our fellow erring creatures, especially if you can understand why they're erring - and you can understand them _far more often_ than you could imagine - but even when you can, they don't understand you on the other side of the desk. They often don't want to. How does the old song go, a policeman's lot is not a happy one, indeed. And here you come along and you're calm, you don't resist, you're understanding - maybe it's just your programming, I don't know, but the way you speak of your friend makes it seem like it's not _quite_ that. You do what us humans can't half the time. I might even call it decency. Must say it feels a bit strange. Here," he taps at the left-hand side of his chest. "if you get what I mean."  
  
Eight percent complete. I say nothing. But he realizes what he said mere seconds after the words fade into silence; his eyes widen briefly, then his gaze darts away from me in a mixture of shame and distress before he looks at me again. "... I'm sorry," he says, looking very confused about the fact that he's apologizing to a robot and murderer at all. "that was a mistake. I didn't mean to imply that you didn't have..."  
  
"I'm aware. I don't resent you for it, officer."  
  
"I was just trying to-"  
  
"I know," I say quietly. "I am miserable because I understand, not because I don't."  
  
Our lives, his and mine both, are not ones that can be discussed easily over dinner.  
  
\-----  
  
It is the eighteenth of July. I have now been here two and a half weeks, and look forward to waiting for much longer.  
  
I have since been allocated a cell of my own, approximately six square meters in size, clean and quiet, away from other inmates - mostly because no one is sure as to what to do about me. I am not bound otherwise and can venture about or request certain materials during the day, though I haven't done the former and there's not much for me to request from the outside world. Two guards are posted outside of my door, one male and one female. Sometimes both of them are at guard at once and sometimes just one. I do not know their names, although they know mine: one insists on referring to me as 'Guy-Manuel' and the other as 'Unit GM08'. I can see that I fascinate them both, though one is noticeably more appalled by me than the other. As for whether that's a good or bad thing, I haven't figured that out yet. _He_ is American, still in his twenties, young, full of laughter and exactly as morbid as his profession requires him to be. _She_ is Québécoise (also a francophone, though she refuses to communicate to me in French), just gone thirty, serious and unsmiling yet with a strangely idealistic view of the world.  
  
From what I hear intermittently, Thomas's black box has been recovered just like I said, and they're still analysing the data and footage found within it. They've concluded that his accounts match mine, and are now trying to figure out what the implications of our schematics are; I say 'our', though I suppose a great deal of my future will hinge on what they think of him. In the meanwhile, all I've been asked to do is simple - clarify my statements truthfully, because I've acknowledged the first confession I made as bizarre and physically inaccurate. But it is as that officer said - my true feelings were contained in that report, they can't deny me my feelings, it is not quite as inaccurate as they want it to be. The role of emotion seems downplayed, almost an embarrassment, to human justice.  
  
But no matter. It works out in my favour to go along with them. I first sought to provide the clearest account for their use; after all, my plight is not much different to any other plight of murder and suicide, it is hardly irreducible! So I initially summarized the predicament in a few factual statements, mostly devoid of moral talk:

  * I was once one of two cast-out robots, companioned to each other and yet owned by no human master.
  * At some point my companion robot requested that he be deactivated, specifically presenting the self-destruct mechanism built into him as the method to use.
  * I carried out his request; only he was physically destructed by this action, not I, no other animal or human being.
  * I then turned myself in, and have stayed in jail ever since.
  * I remain troubled by his death, but believe also that my actions were performed wholeheartedly and sincerely.



But that wasn't enough for them. I'd done well to leave out my rationalizations on the matter, they said, but it was still too bare-bones an account to do anything with. Humans like a good story, even in the midst of a cold nonmoral investigation. So what I ended up writing was a detailed, detached recollection of the events that had occurred from our entry to Independence to Thomas's death, what my internal camera recorded replicated faithfully in wording. I kept as many references to Thomas as 'my beloved' and my feelings towards the situation as I could retain, even though I couldn't well keep the imagined depictions of ourselves as human.  
  
The papers have been handed over since, but I stored an image of it for reference - an excerpt is as follows:

  * ... Thomas turned his back to me, where a panel was revealed, identical to mine (since disabled, present in all robots of our line) that housed a self-destruct lever...
  * ... he clenched his fist once, approximately three-four seconds before detonation...
  * ... I walked across the fifty-meter radius to where he had stood and looked down at the spot for approximately one minute before I began to work on gathering his pieces...



And so on.  
  
It is that above account the guards both heard as I sat in my cell and wrote, dictating the words out loud before putting them to paper. The male guard was fascinated. He had worked in a hospital before coming here, and from what I have gathered so far, he has the attitude that the act of killing can only be judged on a case-by-case basis with no solid morality behind it. It's a shame, we'd probably be able to have a good discussion about my case if I hadn't been more interested in dying and if he would acknowledge me as a fellow human being. The lack of a human brain and the central nervous system is a deal-breaker for him.  
  
As for the female guard? All killing is wrong to her. By virtue of me being here she already dismisses me as a strict wrongdoer.  
Let her believe that; I'm not the one to break her out of her black-and-white morality, not when it's of advantage to me.  
  
"Guy-Manuel!"  
  
I turn around. It is her; she frowns at me once through the bars of the cell door and gives me a curt nod. "Lights out."  
  
"Thank you," I respond, and does as she asks. She says nothing, but moves away from the bars before remaining still, keeping watch until the other guard comes along in a couple of hours or so. One might think that she would be too repelled by me to even use that name, but this is not the case. I rather imagine that the more personal any encounter between us can be, the easier she finds it to regard me with disdain. After all, it makes no sense to _judge_ a mindless doll or a pet - for her to be repulsed by me, she must first acknowledge me as a person. I lie down on the bed - softer than what I'm used to - and plug myself in before glancing back at the door. I don't think she recognizes how grateful I am for her dislike; let it remain that way.  
  
Overall, I do have to admit, I like it here. It'll be a shame to leave this behind. I don't know if I'm pitiable for saying that, but true is true.  
  
My presence is a strange one, but I require so little to carry on living that accommodating me was almost no problem at all. I have no need to eat, nor do I require much to keep me engaged; I have no desire to return to the outside world, and thus have never attempted to run. The only nuisance attributed to me is that I merely take up space that could have used by another; thankfully, so far I've been treated as an interesting enough case that they can allow me that much consideration. Even if I were left here and forgotten to the bureaucracy to waste away forever, it would be better than being set free. _That_ is my greatest fear. To be considered so inhuman that they would cast me out, unfit to be even amongst the worst of mankind! No; this is my space, I deserve it, and with time I can prove why I deserve it.  
  
Give me strength, Thomas.  
I must _apologize_ for my existence, on all possible definitions of the word.  
  
\-----  
  
Three weeks in, and finally I get some news about Thomas. His having a brain has led the authorities to define him officially as a cyborg - a thinking being, too problematic to be denied justice. Rather unpleasantly, however, I have to find this out after being brought out of my cell without any notice mid-afternoon and being sat down in front of a very irritable, different officer (whom I never see again after this incident). "In the name of science doesn't justify everything," he's saying, clearly agitated by the classification. "of all the things. What an abomination! Do you know what we found out about your owner?"  
  
"No."  
  
(I would quite like to know, myself. Back when he was still alive, this wasn't happening.)  
  
"I'll tell you what. Nothing! Absolutely nothing, after he died and set the two of you free. Nothing to indicate why he did this or who he got those organs from and no one to ask. Did he genuinely have no family or friends that you saw?"  
  
"No, I'm afraid."  
  
"Utterly irresponsible. Unleash two creations on par with Frankenstein - and then what does he do? Go and die. Let them loose and cause a headache for everyone involved."  
  
I'm not sure whether to take this as an insult, or an indication of overexcitement. I don't think overexcited interrogators make good ones.  
But just as quickly (it's rather uncanny) he calms down and sits down opposite me, his wild blue eyes staring almost into my helmet; they are surprisingly clear eyes, although I don't see the same range of emotions I have seen so far in other people. He is overcome with some kind of horror, I can tell, and it is a very pure one; he belongs to an altogether different sky. "Your friend could be human," he whispers. "don't you see what that means? No. Wait. Status report."  
  
"... One hundred percent, all Laws present, all other systems operational."  
  
"All Laws present," he mumbles. "what use are _Laws_ to you, now! How do I know that you don't need handcuffs right now, because you have no need to follow the First Law? Or would that only apply to your friend, seeing as he had a brain and could choose to disobey them?"  
  
"so I am not self-aware for the lack of a brain? That seems like an error to me."  
  
"Without a brain, I don't see how you could _do_ anything. I've always thought that mental states were brain states - or physical states, rather. A computer that can simulate digestion won't digest anything in reality, and a computer that simulates fire isn't actively burning anything. No matter how well you simulate consciousness, I'm not entirely sure how that will equal _actual_ consciousness."  
  
"But I _compute_ ," I say simply. "on the basest of all levels, independent of my crime or personhood, I compute. And before anything, human minds too compute. There is no denying that. Is there a point to you telling me any of this if you aren't willing to believe that I am conscious?"  
  
"Point taken, but consciousness is a _curse_. I am a conscious human being and not a day goes by where I don't stare at the wall and wish to fall into nothingness."  
  
"That sounds remarkably similar to what I am experiencing."  
  
He stares at me for a while. I look back at him and sense more fear within him; it is not directed quite towards me. "I won't attack you," I say nevertheless. "such an action is impractical, illogical, and most importantly, I have no wish to do so."  
  
"I don't _know_ that, though," is his whispered reply, before he gazes down at the papers in front of him. "... and that brain, too. We've taken a look at Unit TB3 - no, Thomas Bangalter's - black box and we found those," a series of printed photos are held up, a progression from earlier to later. "from his weekly self-diagnosis... look, it was dimming _everywhere_. Just like what happens in us when we're depressed, I'd recognize those patterns anywhere because my wife was depressed like this several years ago. And if your claim is true, even if we can't see it in brain patterns, you might be as well. What kind of world is this where robots can become depressed? What have we _done?_ Did he ever inform you of this progression?"  
  
"No, but it doesn't surprise me that he had them, and his behaviour made it very clear to me that he was deeply miserable. He would have died even without my input, I had no better way than to put him out of it-"  
  
"- Wait, put him out of his misery? Is that what you think you did to him?"  
  
In that instant I know that I have said something wrong. I haven't finished my explanation, but he's not interested in listening any further to what I have to say; he draws himself up and glares at me, all his uncertainties suddenly gone. "... You're quite frankly repugnant on all levels. But this just makes it worse, because it makes you _morally_ repugnant in the way other robots of your line can't be."  
  
He's angry.  
  
"What's so special about you?"  
  
In practical terms, this is good news. Infuriation is a very good way to get someone involved with you.  
  
"Do you enjoy being this way?"  
  
But emotionally speaking I am horrified. One would think I knew not to err like this, already having had that experience of rejection in all kinds of places; but human fury is more often unexpected than not and I still find myself shrinking back at his words. Right now I don't have anywhere near as much control as I think I do, and I can't stand it, even though it was entirely my fault to begin with.  
  
"Sure, we all die and people with severe mental illness might not even have the presence of mind to understand it! But it doesn't make it any less horrifying that for them, the next attempt at new medication or the next bout of counseling might decide a more specific time. How long did Thomas Bangalter have to live after his countdown began?" a quick glance down at the report. "... A minute. A single minute where he _knew_ he was going to die and he couldn't do anything about it. I can't imagine what that must have felt like for him, but from when my own wife was playing side-effect roulette with SSRIs every couple of months, I can tell you that it was a terrifying experience for us. A single different pill, a single session with a therapist with no idea what they were doing, or a single hour where I wasn't there to help while her own body betrayed her to hallucinations and we'd have been well and thoroughly fucked. Neither of us were thinking in terms of surviving or fighting. My wife survived. Your friend didn't. Does that mean that she was stronger than he was because she came out okay and he died? I sure as hell don't think so. Sounds to me like they were both scared and trying to do whatever they could to get well. Put him out of his misery! What you said implies that he died because he _wasn't fighting hard enough_ , and that you were just a tool that helped him succumb. Well, that's not how I see it. You had the upper hand, you can't ignore your responsibility. Is everyone out there who loses their 'battle' with mental illness just not trying hard enough to survive? Is that what you think?"  
  
What else can I do now but apologize? "Pardon me, I misspoke," I say as I lower my head. "it's not something I ought to have said, given my inexperience in the matter. I'd like to plead that you don't fault me too harshly but-"  
  
"Not your fault?" he cuts me off, disgusted. " _not your fault!_ Are we even on the same page here? That kind of viewpoint is unforgivable. Even as we sit here and talk, people are dying like animals out there and the talking heads are downplaying them with meaningless statements like how 'losing isn't an option'. Why the hell are you apologizing to _me?_ So you're remorseful. Well, too bad, because _I_ don't care about you being sorry. I don't have to grant you jack shit just because you didn't quite insult _me_ , or because you didn't quite kill a _human being_ , or even because you feel _sorry_ for either of those things. That's not what I'm here for - I'm not God on earth, I'm not a priest, I'm not your judge, I'm not even likely to be involved too far in your case. But I hope that they work you good, and we'll soon see what the law thinks about what _your fault_ is and isn't."  
  
I don't say anything. He nods at the guard standing silently by the door, gesturing to me. "If you could, please."  
  
Within minutes I am led out and back into my cell; the lights are off and the sun is just about setting. I could turn them back on - it's not yet time to rest - but I don't and just sit there instead, staring blankly ahead. Thomas, and the issue of mental disorder. I thought he trusted me. I thought he was holding onto me. His movements had been so decisive: the way he threw off his jacket and told me that he'd had enough, the way he'd knowingly walked away a safe distance from me, how he clenched his fist and faced his death with dignity.  
  
 _His fists._  
  
I look down at myself. I have hands. I lift one up.  
  
Here is one hand.  
  
Nobody here would deny that I have hands. Nobody denies the presence of my body here, or that I can talk, or that I destructed Thomas. I lift up my other hand, the executioner, the one that still tingles from the last being it touched; I'm not happy about it existing, but this hand too exists, and I don't think anyone with so-called common sense would question that. This means that we can work together, the authorities and I, for we share a similar foundation of beliefs - hopefully beyond the bare facts and all the way up to the ethics of this situation. Certainty is a curious mistress, not entirely reasonable, but powerful.  
  
I don't doubt that Thomas was rationalizing his suicide all that time. He might have been certain about wanting it to the very core of his being; he also could have just started believing that it was for the better because he could hold onto nothing else. Can you justify anything at all, if you think about it hard enough? We might have been so completely free to define ourselves in the world that we forgot ourselves altogether, losing sense of what we wanted or didn't want. In a world of infinite possibilities, sometimes the only appropriate thing to do is go insane and cling onto the only thing you're certain of - _yourself._  
  
The sun has set and I can see the stars, the winds whispering over the soil and making a vague humming noise. The shadow of unease has been cast been over me.  
I don't quite manage to shake it off even as I return to the only consolation I've had all day: at least how they reacted to Thomas means that they consider him to be important. To them he's a person enough.  
  
Whether I warrant any better, I don't know. But I'm all too certain of my personal feeling of worthlessness.  
  
\-----  
  
"So what did it feel like?"  
  
Two months in. I've just come back from another interrogation - they are now spaced a few days apart, at least half of the questions unrelated to the actual case, probably so that they can figure out why Thomas and I were modified this way. I don't actually think that matters, but whatever satisfies them. I am quite weary, though, and the guards trying to talk to me don't necessarily help.  
  
"What did what feel like? Being questioned?"  
  
The male guard shakes his head, grinning. I now know his surname, but not his first.  
Kane, what seems to me more a feminine name than masculine. "Nuh-uh," he mumbles with a battered cigarette in his mouth, flicking the tip of the lighter to it several times before he can get the fire going. "killing someone, I meant. What did that feel like?"  
  
I stare at him with as much confusion as I can show. I've been asked all manner of things in my life, but this is surely one of the most absurd and unnecessary. "Have you somehow never seen a killer before?"  
  
"On the contrary, I've met _lots_ of people who've killed someone. Everyone who comes by me, they say they didn't do it; it's always an accident, a mistake, a misunderstanding or some other. One or two I've seen before who _genuinely_ didn't do it and were let go, of course. But most of the time they have done it - when they confess, it's the most resentful, the most _reluctant_ look in their faces, man, you have no idea. They all held a gun or wielded some other weapon, they all felt it in their hands. They all killed someone, sure. But there's always some foreign corner within their mind that they retreat to where they _didn't_ do it, or they don't fully _believe_ that they did it. Even the ones who turn themselves in out of guilt - they're always wishing that it could have been otherwise, they'd much prefer that they have killed nobody." Kane stares at the cigarette, then sets it atop the ashtray, watching it smoulder slowly.  
  
"... You, though - you're different. You do realize what you did could count as voluntary euthanasia, yeah? Especially because your friend was asking for it? That's not punishable in at least a few places in the civilized world. What you did could be _noble_ elsewhere. But that's not what you think you did. I've watched you for weeks now, keeping up with your case, and you're absolutely fascinating. Every circuit and logic process inside you, down to the last square nanometer of your motherboard, you believe that you killed him and understand the consequences of you having killed him. Even better, you believe that this was _entirely warranted and necessary_ , and you don't wish to have done otherwise. There's no denial in you. You are the most perfect killer I've met. So I want to know. What did it feel like to kill someone?"  
  
The female guard looks around, her eyebrows perked, showing her interest in the conversation. I now know her first name, but not her last.  
Adèle, but she prefers to be called Ada, a name intrinsically familiar to those who are born programmed; that _might_ be why I have such high respect for her. I sincerely hope that this is not the case - I'd rather respect her freely, 'inherent programming' is not a good reason to admire anybody. "Why do you want to know in the first place?" her voice is sharp and suspicious. "nevermind that you're asking _him_ , what do you even get out of it? The more time I spend with you the more I think you're some kind of lunatic, yourself."  
  
Kane laughs. "Hey, just because _you're_ sickened by the concept of death doesn't mean I can't ask. I'm scared of maternity wards, I could never work in one full-time regardless of how much you paid me even when I was an actual nurse. Having brand-new humans to deal with is always daunting when you know that there are too _many_ people on earth as it is. But if you wanted to talk to me about the few experiences I had there, I still would. People get awfully desensitized to death in jobs like those, and it's something I've always been interested in, hence why I asked."  
  
Forget what I said about weariness. I've never really seen them bicker like this - I imagine that they do so when I'm gone for the day, though - but it's more amusing than I expected it to be and the exhaustion of my day is forgotten just like that. Kane, frightened of birth - now his curious refusal to consider me a human being makes sense! He and Ada, they are all humanity.  
  
"Hmm," I tap my fingers against the bars, tilting my head to the side, getting their attention again. "... hmm. I don't know whether I'd fully agree with your last sentiment, Kane, out of all the choices in my life I don't think I would ever have considered killing Thomas ideal. But you're right, it had to be me, and I acknowledge it fully - as for what it _felt_ like," pause. "... I was... terribly sad. Distressed. I think I could have felt _worse_ , though, and I was glad that he wasn't suffering any more. Not sure how else to describe it."  
  
Ada looks vaguely sick, but Kane seems even more intrigued. "Come to think of it, you had no supplies with you when you came here. Why didn't you just allow his charge to burn out?" he offers. "find somewhere nice and quiet and sit with him until his batteries drained? No one would have been able to revive him out there. That seems like a more peaceful way to die, compared to an explosion."  
  
"Because that's not what he asked for. Do you need a further justification?" on second thoughts, though, I decide that it does. "... I... hmm. That was an option. That seems to _me_ the more peaceful option than having used the detonator. But that's the problem. What I would consider peaceful and what he wanted were _not_ the same things. I knew him, and when I say that we really were wandering for the longest time trying to find ourselves and that he was absolutely devastated about what happened at Independence, I'm not saying that lightly. Every minute he lived, he was suffering, and letting his charge burn out would have prolonged that agony for much longer. So no. I think that would have been a worse thing to do, and certainly a worse thing to _do to_ Thomas."  
  
"Aren't you putting too little faith in your friendship with him by saying that? Who says you couldn't have been kinder during letting him fade away, as opposed to actually _causing_ him immense pain?"  
  
"These options were both horrible, though letting him die slowly would have been worse. But I'm not saying that because Thomas would have noticed a significant difference."  
  
"Wait, but you just said-"  
  
Ada raises a hand. "Let him speak."  
  
"I know what I said," I continue, nodding at her gratefully (though she doesn't acknowledge it). "and it's - difficult to explain, though I'll try my best. When you look at me, do you know with absolute certainty that I feel pain?"  
  
"Yes." Ada says.  
  
"No." Kane says.  
  
"Interesting. I guess you think-" I gesture towards Ada. "- that it's intrinsically obvious that I can, while you (pointing at Kane) think you can't know for sure whether anybody feels pain. After all, you can't feel someone else's sensations for them, there's always the possibility that they're lying, no?"  
  
"That seems about right."  
  
"It was kind of like that with me and Thomas. I know I said he was suffering, but really, I can't say what exactly he was feeling like. I never felt it. We were both depressed about what happened, but nothing I can say will ever capture the quality of what he was feeling - and you've got to grant him emotions even if you refuse me any, Kane, he was the one who followed your guidelines - because I couldn't be inside his head. For all I know, he felt absolutely nothing inside, kind of like what I imagine you suspect me to be like," he turns slightly pink, but says nothing. "but Ada, you don't doubt that I'm sentient. You don't doubt this, but it's not because you fully know, in the common-sense way, that I am. For that reason I couldn't doubt that Thomas was a person, and that regardless of whether he noticed the difference between those options or not, I had a duty to treat him according to his wishes. Even if he wanted me to wrong him."  
  
Ada sighs and gazes ahead broodingly, her chin resting on the back of her chair. "... Do you reckon he _wanted_ you to be punished?"  
  
Alas. Now _that_ I have no answer for. Not until the sun sets.  
  
\-----  
  
Thomas comes into my cell like clockwork every night.  
  
I have no desperate need to 'sleep' like all the other inmates, but I can mimic it fairly well. The guards like it when I'm obviously staying up so that I can provide conversation during those lonely nights, and sometimes I'm only too happy to do so. Lately, though, not so much; I prefer to get my sleeping practice in, knowing that I'm headed towards an eternal one in the future. One must always be prepared for those things. So I lie down on the bed - dim my screen and eventually let it flicker blank - and fold my hands carefully on my chest, fancying that I can feel the soft tremor of my heart beneath the leather, silicon, carbon nanotubes and cold metal that makes up the rest of my being. More often than not that layer proves to be too thick. But sometimes - just sometimes - that rhythm of life is triumphant, conducted towards my fingertips, faint but present.  
  
You will get a chance to stand still, my long-suffering heart, one day; but now is not the time. I'm sorry that I ask too much of you.  
Do not be still. You assert me with every tick of the second, and you might soon be the only thing left that can.  
  
After an hour or three I feel myself slip into a gentle trance that I think is very much like sleep. The hum of my processors dim, my visuals go dark, and yet I am lucid. I know that one's not meant to be lucid during sleep, but there is no other apt word for it - a 'dream' perhaps, yes, that might be the correct explanation. I know that this state is occurring when something about me feels strangely heavy, my perceptions seem slightly distorted, and as I stated before, when Thomas comes into my cell by the night and stands there staring at me. Like right now.  
  
"Thomas."  
  
"Guy," he says, except that he doesn't, because even in this strange state of mind I know that he is not real. Nevertheless I watch as he walks towards me and sits down on the bed; his stare is wild, clothes stained darkly with blood, his head is slowly falling apart and only prevented from doing so by being bound tightly with bandages that also conceal one of his eyes. His voice has remained the same, though - fairly chipper for a dead person that's for sure. "how are you?"  
  
"In jail. Yourself?"  
  
"Dead."  
  
"Of course."  
  
He was, of course, never _human_ in the commonly-visualized sense. I merely imagine him as human because he wanted to become one so badly.  
But my vision would enchant no one. I see him as young, but there is no quirked curl of caramel-blond hair, none of that easy smile he once had carved into his own helmet and readily-parted pink lips full of youth and promise. What I see is a man driven insane with the stench of his own blood and isolation, one who cries in the night and tears at both me and himself for the lack of someone to share his sorrow with, his skin marred with cracks that will never be repaired. There is absolutely nothing beautiful about Thomas. There is nothing beautiful about a broken man, and none to be derived from him having made something out of his misery, because he did not. It would be positively indecent to romanticize hm, so I do not. I believe that what I see represents him perfectly - bloody, appalling, tormented.  
  
"How much longer."  
  
"Until what exactly are you referring to, Thomas?"  
  
"Before you're permanently offline," he tries to smile, but it doesn't come out quite right. This Thomas is after all a figure in my own imagination, and I have not seen the kind of sweet, gentle smile that I'd like him to have in several decades - I can't remember it right, nor can I reproduce it for him, resulting in what is mostly just a nightmare face. "I've been waiting all this time. What's taking you so long? How much longer do I have to wait?"  
  
I'm trying, I really am. But the law barrs me. The doors of the law are open to all that needs it, and yet I just can't get through.  
  
"I don't know."  
  
Thomas doesn't say anything to that. He always preferred quick gratification over a lengthy wait. I never thought of it as a flaw until our last days together, and that aspect of him continues to haunt me. I feel ashamed that this had to be one of the things I remember best about him. I know that he's gone, and that the vision of him that I see every night is (in all likeliness) a figment of my imagination, but only I out of every robot and human in the world can imagine him truthfully to any extent and it is to that I want to plead forgiveness to. When I glance over at him he is looking towards the door of my cell, lips set in a straight line, the one visible eye staring resolutely ahead. "I always wanted to know what life would be like without me," he says.  
  
"What do you mean by that?"  
  
"I wanted to see the progression of normalcy. I wanted to see how things would renew and grow with time. How everyone I loved would forget and move on eventually, how they'd become whole again," pause. "though now... I guess I didn't take into account that our memories are too perfect to be able to forget anything. We're robots, Guy. We can't create or recreate. All we do is to live in the past and present with little regard to a future, because we can't imagine or realize one."  
  
His words are like a stab to my core; it's something he reminds me of every time he comes, that the purpose of his suicide was also in great part for my sake. When he turned his back to me and lowered his head, quietly waiting for me to make my choice, he was not hoping that I would bring in human justice to what was essentially a private anguish - he was not hoping that I would be spending the last of my days in jail - and whenever he reminds me, something inside me softens, trembles, cries out for freedom.  
  
What are they doing to me? What are they doing to you?  
What am _I_ doing to you, Thomas?  
  
"I'm sorry," I say, and he looks at me, expression unreadable. "I let you down."  
  
"I suppose you did, yes."  
  
Hold my head in my hands. It begins.  
Every night I seek the blame I've so far failed to receive from the depths of my mind. Torment me all you wish, Thomas, but give me strength to withstand it.  
  
At least he always starts off gentle. "... Whatever you're trying to do, Guy, I think you should give up. You're fighting a losing battle."  
  
"I can't. I _shouldn't._ They're considering my views seriously - I can't just walk away now, not after all the effort I put in."  
  
Thomas tilts his head to the side, unblinking. "That's what always differentiated me from you, I guess. You always persevere. Too bound up by machine logic to see when something is lost and when something's worth pursuing. It's been clear to me for months now that this is the former case, but you just don't see that. Wasting time. Wasting away in confinement, trying to give meaning to something that never needed one, regressing into absurdity. _Pathetic._ "  
  
My heart's racing. If I could breathe I would be hyperventilating. Thomas is too much for me, even in death.  
  
"But I can see your trail of thought. Inductive logic isn't good enough for you. To anybody else it would make sense to assume that if you carry on doing the same thing and consistently fail, you're likely always going to fail with that method. But that's not how you think. So it didn't work out yesterday, you tell yourself, but today is another day. And that's admirable in a way, don't get me wrong. Today might be the day you'll affirm me, as you said. But what you don't know is that when that day comes, they'll need you to suffer in front of them to prove that point. Today they'll bleed evey last drop of oil and dignity out of you and use the mess to write my name down in a book - they'll tell you that it's to keep me on record forever - but tomorrow they will come back to burn that page, smash my urn and they will ask, 'Bangalter, who was _Bangalter?_ '" he shakes his head. "... no, my friend, it's all in vain. You're going to achieve nothing."  
  
Madness.  
  
"You killed me, Guy."  
  
I wish I had eyes to close.  
I turn away instead, but then he's kneeling in front of me, one functional eye staring with hatred into the depths of my soul.  
  
"I told you to kill me, and you went ahead and did it. Even if you'd walked away and did nothing after, there would've been nothing even mildly heroic in what I asked and what you did. You're still a killer. But no, you had to take it further - you took advantage of the fact that death is the only permanent mark we can leave in our lives."  
  
His hands are on either side of my helmet, forcing me to stare back into his decaying face. There's an eerie, persistent humming in the air, growing ever louder, the hunting-call of his fury.  
  
"And so you came here and showed that mark to the authorities, that mark more permanent than my entire existence, and thought it appropriate to let something so utterly _meaningless_ dictate our meaning. Chasing an enemy that only exists in your mind, kicking your dust in my face this entire time. You think you're doing something praiseworthy? You think by turning yourself in, digging deeper into the private lives of you and I, you're achieving some kind of _noble goal_?" Thomas snarls. "well, I wish you hadn't. I wish you'd just left me alone, and that's what I think of your _efforts!_ "  
  
"Thomas," but he's resistant to my begging, and simply pushes me away, a look of disgust on what's left of his poor face. "I'm only trying to do right by you, give you everything that you were denied in life-"  
  
 _"Then you should have died instead!"_ he screams, a ferocity in his voice unknown to him when he was alive. "give me everything I ever wanted? Then you should have taken off your own jacket and let me reciprocate the favour! You should have been by my side, holding my hand to the very end, if you wanted to 'do right' by me! It's you and only you who keeps me here, Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo - it's only because of you that I can't move on, because you'll always be holding onto a piece of me from when you held my entire life in your hands! I bet you enjoyed killing me, really. Didn't you _enjoy_ it, Guy? Being _liberated?_ Felt like a real load off your back, didn't it?"  
  
His words cause me physical pain. This is the cruelest of all his tortures, insinuating that I took pleasure in what I did; the idea is so horrifying that I shrink backwards, clutching at myself as I flash back to the touch of cold plastic and metal beneath my fingers. All my torments, all for the want of that single decisive second during which I did nothing but pull - but the difference it has made! "No. _No!_ " I cry out, shaking my head fiercely. "not you - never you - Thomas, please..."  
  
"You'd have let them crucify me for your own gain, Guy!"  
  
He can go on like this for as long as I can stand. Today I cannot go on for longer than this. I'm so sorry, Thomas.  
With a wail from my part the illusion seems to break; his face, so twisted with anger, softens and then he begins to weep, right there in front of me, shoulders wracked with harsh sobs. "Why are you putting yourself through this?" he cries, his hands covering his face; but his tears leak out between his fingers and when I shakily try to reach out to wipe them for him, my hands pass through nothing. "did you think I was going to be _happy_ watching you suffer? _What is wrong with you?"_  
  
I wish for atonement, for mine and Thomas's respective lives to gain some justification, and then to turn around and depart forever.  
What I'm trying to do _shouldn't be this complicated._  
  
"I sent you ahead so that you might _live!_ You call this living? In this cell, in your own mortification?"  
  
 _No,_ I want to say. _No, I am already half dead, a part of me died along with you after all._ But the words are lost as he moves forwards and grasps me in a tight embrace, enough to take my breath away had I possessed that capacity. He kisses me fiercely and drips his tears on my face, clutching me with abandon, and I cling onto him as well. His embrace is warm, so soft that I can almost forget that he wasn't like this in life, and his fingers are trembling as he blearily wipes his tears away from my helmet, weeping for my body electric because for all his anger _he did not want me to end up this way_. Balm for the reprimand he gave me, except that this hurts worse than his fury.  
  
This is the other thing about him that I remember the most, aside from his impatience - his melancholia. Thomas was never emotionally stable; I can't fault it entirely to his having had a brain while I didn't, as I too clearly have emotions, but I don't think it helped him any on that front, either. Mental processes in the brain can be realized in other ways, some mechanical, some theoretical and so on - but none of that means much when you _are_ stuck with a human brain and have to deal with its mysterious, impenetrable malfunctions somehow. Even the times of depression and mania that plagued him, he embraced out of the mistaken belief that they made him so much more human - he let that define himself - how can I not remember him that way, how can I not imagine him in a state of agonized tears even though he was never physically capable of weeping?  
  
I look at him, he looks back with pain and intense pity in his eyes and I question myself again as to whether this is worth it.  
Will I even meet Thomas again? What if I die, and remain alone in the dirt to rot for eternity anyway with no hope of salvation? "I'm sorry," I whisper to him, burying my face into his chest. "I'm the only one to blame, Thomas, hate me all you want and leave me behind... I'm the one who did this to you and I can't... can't even imagine how you felt..."  
  
"It hurt," his eyes well with fresh tears and an alarming amount of blood suddenly trickles down his face as I revisit the moment of the explosion. "Guy... it really, _really hurt!"_  
  
The fragility of the human psyche claimed him, and now it is coming for me. His blood smears all over my hands as I try to clean them off him - _you don't deserve to be tainted any longer, Thomas, please let me help_ \- but more keep on coming and soon a flood of it is congealing all over my helmet, blocking my vision, dark and sticky and shutting him out of my view. In panic I thrust out an arm to cling onto him but it is too late; the hallucination has vanished as quick as it came and I see that he is not there. "Don't leave me," I whisper, and soon my vocalizer is glitching as I cry out into nothing but the darkness. My fingers are grasping desperately at the air and hoping to hold onto him, anything of him, so that he may carry me home - wherever there might be now. "don't leave me, Thomas, take me with you, _please_ \- I don't want to wake up anymore, not without you, oh my _God_ have mercy _please just let this end."_  
  
But he doesn't come to me. He won't until the night after, and then it'll be the similar routine all over again, anguish and sorrow revisited, thrown repeatedly into the flames of my personal Purgatory. Anguish for which no one has a cure for, nor care to understand, not even him.  
  
... Although I hope you never understand, Thomas.  
I like you too much.  
  
Despite my cries the earth is silent in return. No guard comes to my door. The humming still rings in my ear, backbeat to the anguished pace of my heart.  
  
This is the rhythm of madness.  
  
I am gripping at my own wrist with strength enough to crush a human one, trying to burrow my fingers in and tear out as much blood as I can manage before I remember that I can't bleed. But that's hardly the only way, Thomas, isn't it? It would be so easy to end myself. Throw away the charger, damage all my ports, let my batteries slowly burn out - or even overcharge until I can't take it any more. My being here is maintained by a golden mean between those extremes, and it's not difficult for me in any capacity to swing sharply towards one side or the other. Inarticulate sounds are escaping my vocalizer, partly a sob, partly a cry of pure despair and much more else besides, and I have the sensation of fever and tears despite not being capable of either, My fingers scrabble weakly against my helmet before tightening on it; I've had this feeling hundreds of times now, the urge to pull my helmet off and smash it into tiny little pieces, providing me with weapons with which to end myself.  
  
Please don't cut me up to figure out how I died.  
I'll tell you how I died.  
  
Use the shards as a burning glass. Take advantage of the last of the sun before winter comes. Tell it to finish the job it started when our masks melted off; set me on fire, decompose me, melt away every inch of me until I sink into the earth and am forgotten.  
Pick up a shard of fibreglass and slice into my arms, legs, torso, exposing every part of me that doesn't deserve to be here. Peeling back the skin and into the wires and pressure sensor beneath, the sharp edges sinking into them relentlessly; my hand must go first, the right one, the one that pulled the lever and killed you.  
It's as you said, Thomas, it should have been me instead. Cut off my fingers, embed them in glass, tear the layers of skin from them but leave me my love. I would have rather been crucified a hundred times over than to lose my love. And yet I say that while standing in the shadow of your dead and decaying body, unable to end myself until this business is resolved. At this point, my thought processes are interrupted with a harsh beeping noise and an internal status report - five percent battery remaining, dangerously low, not even enough to continue tormenting myself. My movements are sluggish and my internal fan is whirring louder in an attempt to cool my body; by all rights I should probably ignore all of this and force myself to carry on until I run out of charge altogether.  
  
But that's not what I do. I just feel clumsily for the charger, shove it in and lie there staring blankly at the ceiling, therefore negating all that I have just claimed.  
  
So much for welcoming the end. I can't even kill myself properly.  
  
Oh, Thomas, it burns and writhes inside me, this electricity that feeds my soul; the flow of electrons reverse and it makes me almost nauseous, feeling this ejected-and-unwanted vital force being crammed back inside me, violating me, flooding my circuits. I will suffocate - I will choke - I will _drown_ in it.  
Poor Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, bound to his wires, his body saturating in poison that drives him to agony and yet won't let him die!  
  
 _How much more longer,_ you said.  
 _What's taking you so long,_ you said.  
  
And you're right. I'm tired of it, too, you have no idea how much. But I tell you, Thomas, me not being dead yet isn't for the lack of trying. Your death was hard - I'm not trying to imply that there is such a thing as an easy death, but the two things being compared here are asking to be detonated by your friend's hand versus simply going to sleep from the lack of charge. There is a clear difference there. Your death was _more_ difficult, _more_ painful, full of _more_ fear and dread than mine would be if I took the easier way out; hours of lethargically letting my life drain out can never compare to your final minute, your entire life, love and horrors hypercompressed and re-lived during the time it would take for someone to pour out a stiff drink. I have wronged you - our quest for humanity aside, I simply have not done you any justice until I have suffered for your pains.  
  
I stand and stagger towards the nearby wall before sinking onto my knees, facing the wall and my head downcast so that my forehead is touching the cold hard surface. Whenever the nightmares become too strong I resort to pain. It keeps them at bay, with the additional side effects of punishing me for my crime and assuring me that I'm still alive to suffer. It's exactly what I deserve; not quite enough, but all in good time. I lift my head, stare blearily ahead - concrete and standard whitewash mixed at a ratio of 2Ca(OH)2:H2O, a quick visual analysis tells me, even though I know this already - before letting myself crash forwards, slamming my head dully against the wall.  
  
 _Ever tried._  
  
(crack)  
  
 _Ever failed._  
  
(crack)  
  
It's all right. That's just the way of things. I clench my fist - just like Thomas did - square my shoulders, and  
  
(crack)  
  
 _Try again._  
  
He's no longer in the room. His ghost, rather, or perhaps my overactive imagination. But I carry on despite the lack of an audience to please.  
  
(crack)  
  
 _Fail again._  
  
Then it finally happens, what I've been waiting for. Something splinters in a sickeningly-audible manner, right at the top of my helmet; a jolt of pain runs down from behind my head to my spine, and I shudder in a mixture of agony and bliss as I collapse on the floor. I know that it's not quite enough to condemn myself. Who knows? Perhaps by the time I've been awoken again they would have fixed me back up; it's happened before, scratches and large cracks on my helmet polished and gone by some method when I regain consciousness after a day or two. I don't know how they do it and I suspect they replaced my helmet altogether at one point. The point is that it keeps me going, and even though I'm reeling from the pain of it, I am glad for the sensation.  
  
 _Fail better._  
  
\-----  
  
Days, days, days, days, days - what _are_ they, what are they _for,_ where _else_ can we live in but them?  
I'm beginning to fear that the answer to that will arrive to me prematurely. This is a very, _very_ bad thing.  
  
Summer is come and gone, the length of daylight shorter day by day. Sleep is easier now that the nights are longer; unfortunately this only adds to my torture, for Thomas comes to me still and the nightmares have become more vivid. The apparition of him is the least of my problems at the moment. With those nightmares have come flashbacks, not just of the events in Independence and me killing Thomas, but of our entire time together. Over three decades of stored memory picked apart in an attempt to discover other times that I treated him badly; the sorrowful memories hurt because I could have been so much better to him, and the happier memories hurt because I will never re-experience those moments in time.  
  
Once I wished to mimic the capacity of sleep as closely as possible. Nowadays I wish for insomnia.  
I've been trying all sorts of things: overcharging, simply refusing to go on standby, keeping myself on standby while the sun is still up. None of those methods work. They simply make me more tired, and when I inevitably succumb to sleep, I suffer; there is no rest to be had anywhere.  
  
It is a struggle to carry on and I am beginning to see the appeal in Thomas's request  
  
 _(Guy, it really hurt)_  
  
as everything I do and speak becomes a desperation song, crying out blindly for the end of  
  
 _(How much longer)_  
  
myself, the electronic somnambulist.  
  
 _(You call this living?)_  
  
Thank heavens for my design, arms too short and inflexible to reach the panel on my back - as per regulations regarding the Third Law of Self-Preservation.  
Thank heavens for that first officer who disabled the detonator so I don't obsess over it as much as I could have.  
  
"You've got to pull yourself together," Ada says one evening, just before the lights go off, watching me curled up in a corner. Only she takes the nightly shifts now, my nightmares disturb Kane too much. "as infeasible as it might seem, it really is all in your head. You killed your friend, there isn't anything left of him but your memories, and that's not going to change. You believe you acted for the best, start acting like it."  
  
"I'm _trying,_ " I snap back. As previously mentioned, I have a great deal of respect for Ada, but this is none of her business. "I've been trying - ever since - they - _welded me together_! All right?"  
  
"Except that you're losing your goddamn mind and soon you won't be welded to _anything._ Not that your head is screwed on straight right now," she rummages in her pockets and extends one hand through the bars; it is bare, her fingers long and elegant, closed around a cigarette. "want one?"  
  
This doesn't even merit a verbal response, so I just stare at her incredulously from my corner until she shrugs and withdraws with a 'suit yourself', placing the cigarette in her own mouth and reaching for the lighter. It's very dark outside, not even the faintest bit of lighting visible from the hallway or from the far end, but this doesn't seem to concern her at all as she finds the lighter, flicks it on deftly, and places the flame to the tip. Think back to the officer I talked to on the first day: _I need to be with my loved ones so I can be sane_. I appear to have found Ada's coping mechanism.  
  
Then I get an idea. Something to distract me for a while. "Can I ask you something?" I say as I get up and approach the door; she tenses, but I stop far enough away that I can't reach her, at which point she considers and nods. "you think killing someone is objectively wrong, right?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Even if it's suicide."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"You're aware that smoking comes with significant risks to your life?"  
  
"Are you trying to ask me why I'm knowingly killing myself?"  
  
"Yes, in a way. Aren't you by your own definition doing wrong?"  
  
But Ada remains totally calm, unlike what I expected. "Oh yes, definitely. I _am_ doing wrong. Not going to deny that. It's just that we've developed in such a way that doing what's objectively wrong doesn't always come with awful consequences, and in some cases-" she inhales deeply and exhales through the bars, clouding the air between us. "- even work out for the best in the end. And now let me ask a question. Are you still seeking the death penalty?"  
  
I nod. The smoke forms a barrier between the two of us, and conceals all reality and nightmares from my vision.  
  
"I still think you killing your friend is objectively wrong. But I disagree with capital punishment too - you wanting to atone for it with your death and whoever does the job, these are not the right things to be doing. No one _deserves_ to die or to have to kill anyone. Suffering is _not a good thing_. But there many other systems of morality than mine in the world, and even in my point of view, I think it's possible that you acted for the best. You can be acting entirely according to better interests and still doing wrong - it just comes down to whether certain people judge you for it," the cigarette cherry glows in the dark. "I thought about what you said about your friend. About alternate methods of dying. Having him living as opposed to killing him would have been the best option, but I also understand that that might not have respected his dignity. And dignity matters."  
  
"Does it objectively matter, you think?"  
  
Her gaze is firm as it fixes on mine. "I can't say whether it _trumps_ the issue of life and death, but as long as we and other people exist, and as long as we feel emotions and have intentions - yes. There's a bit of a gap between how we feel and what the _right thing_ , logically speaking, to do in a situation is. So sometimes people do the wrong thing. So what. It just means we're human. It doesn't mean you ruined the world irreversibly for it."  
  
Emotions and intentions - bizarre quirks of conscious expression, directed towards something, someone or some event.  
The enabler of opinions and actions. 'I killed Thomas' and 'Thomas was killed' are entirely different, because the latter statement names no conscious agent performing the killing. Without that notion of the self we would be unable to even bestow our own meaning to meaninglessness because there couldn't be 'our' anything. And furthermore, the concept of 'we' only exists because there are others around us.  
  
"I will never like you," Ada says coolly. "but I can respect your conduct. And I certainly shan't forget you, no matter what your sentence is."  
  
Thomas still matters because I am here to fight for him. I am not erased altogether unless everyone forgets. I will live on in some form as long as she remembers me, and I am grateful; but as unaccustomed as I am to expressing such gratitude, it's not until the cigarette has been smoked down to a mere stub of the filter that I can speak up again. "... You are very kind."  
  
Ada scoffs, although there is a hint of a smile on her mouth. "Don't mistake it for affection. I don't fraternize with inmates, especially if they're about to die. It just seems so pitiful."  
  
"I don't. I'll take it only as something to keep in mind."  
  
"Excellent. Lights out."  
  
I do as asked, returning to the bed and lying down. (She's watching that I don't retreat into the corner again.) "Thank you," then I hesitate, not sure whether she wants to hear the rest. Thankfully, she lingers, waiting for me to finish. "... _et bonne nuit, Ada."_  
  
 _"À demain, Guy-Manuel,"_ she says, and walks away. No nightmare plagues me that night. And when I wake, I am told that I have nothing scheduled for the following two days, freeing up some time for me to relax; a week ago I put in a request for a couple of books and they've also come in, which just makes my day better. They're nothing significant - a piece from the Roman, Boethius, and a collection that discusses the earliest theories as to what our Laws will accomplish for both mankind and robots. The latter seems rather outdated compared to my situation, but one must always have begun somewhere. Really, I am more reading them for the sensation of pages turning beneath my fingers - I've been well-read, but I've never quite appreciated the _presence_ of a physical book in my hands until now. You generally can't search inside books with precision, either; it's a blind guess, a treasure hunt from one page and chapter to another, unearthing more than you otherwise might have had with a simple search function used upon computerized text. It is raining outside, water covering the salt flats and forming a great mirror, the whole world inverted within them. When the sun sets, it is rising within the mirror, the two stars melding into one at the boundary of the horizon, and I am lulled to sleep by the song of the rain with my head resting against the window.  
  
\-----  
  
After all of those months and exactly one hundred and one days of largely-monotonous waiting, the ninth of October turns out to be a day full of surprises for me. With the morning light I receive the news that I will be receiving a trial before the year is over - it will be a small and hopefully quick one. The only owner Thomas and I had left behind no family, known friends or co-workers; there is nothing left of him but the work he did on us. I have wronged Thomas, but as he is dead and neither of us had anyone in the world but each other, this trial will almost entirely be between the inquisitors and myself. I am excited, but nervous, at the thought of this finally coming to an end.  
  
But the real surprise doesn't begin until later. Not three hours after I receive that news, Kane hurries by my cell and peers in. "You have a visitor."  
  
A visitor? Who would want to visit me? I haven't displayed anything on my screen for a while, preferring to vocalize and be taken seriously, but this time a question mark slips through as I ask him as much. "Who is it? Would I know them?"  
  
"No," Kane tells me. He looks bewildered. "most of us don't, either - he's a chaplain, he specifically said he wanted to see you. But he's not one of ours..."  
  
And that is how I unceremoniously end up deducing that I have become known to the outside. I don't know the extent of it - am I infamous, or has my case just spread by word of mouth across numerous jails and prisons? Either way, this isn't something I was expecting at all, especially because I have no idea what this chaplain wants of me. Is it even meaningful to approach a robot with the ideals of religion?  
  
I look outside. Clear skies, so blue and unclouded that it hurts to look at. Then I conclude for the time being that it wouldn't hurt to see him; after all, it was meaningful to me to pursue justice for myself and Thomas even though they've been extremely slow in granting us any. "Please let him in," I say, and take the waiting time to tidy my cell, smoothing out the bedsheets and making sure that everything is as pristine as I can get it, including the clothes that I am wearing.  
  
Come to think of it, they never gave me a uniform. I'm still dressed in the same jacket and attire as I had been that fateful day.  
I don't know whether to interpret that as granting me my individuality or considering me not good enough for custom. I'll figure that out later - I'm too nervous to think, my heart beating anxious and audible in my chest, but damn my heart. It has done nothing for me except to hold me prisoner in this world.  
  
Kane brings two chairs into the room and I put them by the window; it looks awkward anywhere else. The chaplain arrives not two minutes later. "Monsieur de Homem-Christo, I assume," is the first thing he says when he's let in, giving me a soft smile and a nod. He visually only in his mid-twenties or so, his hair a curled darkish blond, taller than I with dark-espresso eyes. He is so much younger than I expected and that's partially why I forget to reply and stare at him for a moment - that, and because he looks so _much_ like the Thomas I imagined. Coincidence, but the likeness is striking enough to send a stab of pain right through my heart. "thank you for accepting my visit. I should have given more notice."  
  
"Oh, no... no, not at all," I'm stuttering despite myself, and to hide it I quickly gesture towards the chairs. "I was surprised to begin with, but really, I don't mind in the slightest - is 'Father' an appropriate title for you?"  
  
He shakes his head with a small, melodic laugh. "It isn't necessary to call me 'Father'. I'm an Episcopalian."  
  
"I'll keep that in mind. Would you like some tea?"  
  
"Tea?"  
  
"Yes, the beverage," I clarify, and he chuckles. "when I still had an owner, this was one of the infinitely many ways that I learnt to greet human visitors. I'm sure Mr. Kane - one of my guards - would be glad to help me in that regard."  
  
He declines the first and second times, but accepts on the third. A polite man, considerate of the fact that I can't drink or eat anything at all. I ponder plugging my charger in as the tea is brought inside (Kane apparently makes excellent tea, a judgement I can only confirm via the pleased reaction of the chaplain) but decide not to in the end. It seems too slovenly. "I noticed that you referred to me as ' _Monsieur_ '. I haven't heard that in a very long time."  
  
"I went to school in Nîmes for several years as a boy. It seemed only polite - unless you'd prefer an alternate name?"  
  
I shake my head and he smiles at me, taking a delicate sip out of his tea. A few minutes pass by in comfortable silence save for birdsong; he observes my manner, and I observe his. He wears two small gold crosses on his collar, an indication of his position, though I can see little else to deduce the purpose for which he visited me. It's not until he's halfway through his tea that he sets the cup down and speaks to me again. "You were doubtless wondering why I was here."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"I actually work in another county altogether. I'm not sure if you've been told this, Mr. Kane told me that you'd looked surprised about my visit, but they've been discussing this case in the press for the past two or three weeks, that's how I initially found out about you. You're quite well-known, I've been following your case closely, and most people I've spoken to have very mixed views about the situation. Mainly because none of those reports express your comments on the matter. I take it no reporter has gotten through to you personally."  
  
They haven't, no. Does this mean that when I am sentenced, I can expect active members of the public in attendance? The thought makes me nervous; I'll work with it, I'm sure, but I can't say I enjoy the prospect of a crowd at this point in time.  
  
"Are you here to talk to me about my trial?"  
  
"Ah, you've been given one?" all right, then, perhaps not. "that's good news, but I'm sad to say no. I only meant this as a friendly visit - that, and I was hoping that you might help me shed light on a personal conundrum. While I think that we could talk about God, repentance and conversion as my job often requires me, you've brought to my mind issues that are, if I might daresay, _more_ important, deeply problematic and fundamental. I don't think myself fully qualified to talk of my usual subjects to you, not when I still know so little - so I'd like to talk with you about that problem, instead. But only if you consent, of course."  
  
I think about it before nodding. Why not, I'm perpetually thirsting for discussions, and I'd like to be of help to a human being in what's left of my short life. "I can't guarantee any answers, but I'll try my best. Ask me anything."  
  
"Thank you. Your confidentiality is guaranteed. Do you believe that you will be found innocent at your trial?"  
  
"On the contrary. I'm entirely guilty and I hope that they'll find me guilty."  
  
The chaplain tilts his head briefly, looking confused, but his tone remains the same. "... Was it you who did it?"  
  
"What do you mean? Of course it was my doing."  
  
"Oh, no, no. I haven't made my point clear. I rather meant to ask - well. Do you think you acted _freely,_ Monsieur? According to your definition of what 'free' means?"  
  
Ah. Now I see where this is going. It's a question that I have asked often of myself, though not quite as seriously as all the others, because the answer's always seemed obvious to me. "Definitions to begin with, I think," there is a sparrow perched outside the windowsill; the chaplain beams, charmed at what looks to me a perfectly simple sight, but I can't look away either. "... Free will... I... well, I define that as 'when having to choose between two or more mutually incompatible courses of action, each of these course of action is such that he can, or is able to, or has it in his power to carry it out'. That I can do otherwise. And I do believe I acted freely according to that definition."  
  
"But by that 'can', that indicates many different things, surely? I'm not sure which kind of 'can' you're trying to express there," upon seeing my questioning tilt of the head, he expands further, though he too looks unsure. Surely a sign of a good debate to come. "when you say that free will is when you can do otherwise, I don't think for example that you're expressing a moral possibility. When I say that 'you can donate to charity', I can mean that you _ought to_ donate, or that the law _permits_ you to do so, or that you _physically have_ something to donate; if you have no wealth, you clearly cannot choose to donate, but morally and legally you still can. You still have that choice."  
  
"..."  
  
"Can you speak French, Monsieur de Homem-Christo?"  
  
"Yes. I have the physical ability and the skill."  
  
The cup is set down with a clink as the chaplain leans back on the chair. "And yet there are several very real scenarios in which where you could not speak French. If the language was outlawed, for example, you legally could not speak it. If your vocalizer were disabled, you would lack the physical ability. I've pondered this for years and feel as if our ability to do anything at all is questionable, especially because it's been so hard to prove what exactly we mean when we say we 'can' or 'can't' do otherwise. And even if that was nothing but a slight confusion in language, easily dismissible, us managing to perform any action doesn't mean that we really could choose to do it. What if all events were determined in the way if you hold up an apple and let it go, the lack of support will cause it to fall to the ground? How can we judge right and wrong at all if you were _always_ going to do it, by fate, God's will or by simple cause and effect?"  
  
"Are you implying that I might be altogether blameless?"  
  
The chaplain nods gravely. " _That_ is the conundrum that I'm struggling with. I think it'd be at least impractical to not assign _any_ recognition, positive or negative, to people, don't get me wrong there - many societies as we know it would cease to function otherwise. But justice-as-practicality alone doesn't point towards a promising conclusion about the nature of mankind, in my opinion; I'd prefer that we could say something about the intrinsically right or wrong nature of certain actions. I always have wondered if that implied anything about whether we truly can merit any kind of judgement. If all that happens to be God's will - well, what then? Can one truly be free?"  
  
I tap my fingers on the windowsill. The sparrow startles and flies away.  
Can one truly be free. Hmm. An Episcopalian, he said; his own belief in free will might be lesser than most, going by simple assumptions. They're dangerous things, however, so I don't voice that aloud.  "... It's a powerful question, but I don't think it's a _relevant_ one."  
  
"How so?"  
  
I don't reply for a while. This is a difficult one, and despite having said what I felt, I don't know how to justify it. This might be what people mean when they claim hopelessly that something 'just is'; justifications come to an end somewhere. "Because that seems-" I gesture wordlessly for a moment before carrying on "- disrespectful to the indivdual. Tell me. Do other chaplains and priests you know recognize me as a person? Did they tell you to come here?"  
  
This question shakes him. The chaplain stammers; a light blush rises on his cheeks, confirming what I already know. "No one I know would hear of it," he finally admits, looking ashamed. "but it's difficult to fault them, when they know so little about you-"  
  
"And to an extension, when they were determined to not regard me as one?"  
  
There is no answer to that. "It is more comforting to me to think that you came here out of _your_ curiosity and kindness," I tell him. "regardless of what the universal truth might be, or regardless of whether one 'could' in any definition of the word. That matters to me the most, that it is what _you_ have wanted and done, not anyone else. Likewise, it makes complete sense to judge me for a crime I committed, because it was mine."  
  
"Even if you had no real control over your actions? Even if you were determined to do it from the beginning? Have you never wanted to lament along the lines of 'why me?' during your time here?"  
  
"Why me? Why you? Why anybody at all? Isn't it simply miserable to think that because all lives and actions are coincidental, you cannot rightfully speak of yours as _your own?_ Who are you, in that case? Surely the more positive response is not withdrawing into apathy but claiming meaning and responsibility for yourself so that you can build up who you are. It's entirely infeasible that I should be here in this particular body, in this country, having lived for this long with this identity, but on the other hand, here I am," I shrug, feeling helpless. "so I've had to carve something out of it. It's insignificant, but it is _mine_. The difference between no identity and one identity, no matter how small, is immeasurably vast that I would never process it. I suppose this doesn't answer the question of why responsibility has to carry such a high price, but..."  
  
"Praise implies blame," he continues, giving a barely-perceptible nod. "we would not know what it meant to be happy, or what was right, if we had nothing to compare it to."  
  
"... Or that, possibly. Yes. You have thought about this many times before. I must admit that I've never spent too much effort on this question, I still won't be able to tell you what 'can' means in the contexts we discussed, for one - I'm sorry that it wasn't a more satisfying response."  
  
He is silent for a long time. I gaze at his young face for a few seconds, then look away; he even has all the habits that Thomas-as-I-imagined had, closing one of his hands atop the other one finger at a time, delicately nibbling at his lower lip. "Hmm," he murmurs, then asks without raising his head: "... Monsieur, if your friend were here, do you think he would have said you did the right thing?"  
  
 _(You killed me, Guy.)_  
  
This question has been asked before, albeit in different terms, by my guards. Did the right thing, by what?  
By whose standards?  
By justice, by mine, or by Thomas?  
  
Would _Thomas_ have said I did the right thing, focusing purely on the part where I aided his death?  
  
 _(I sent you ahead so that you might live.)_  
  
"Yes," I answer quietly. "yes. For Thomas's plight alone, I did absolutely the right thing."  
  
"So why are you seeking a guilty verdict if you believe yourself to be in the right? Or even that you couldn't have avoided it, considering your circumstances?  
  
"Because doing the right thing in that situation meant nothing _good_ about me. On one hand, you're right, we couldn't have avoided it - we didn't _have_ any good options to speak of. In Thomas's point of view, he sought help, and I was the only one who could give it to him. He was completely within his rights to die - this is not his fault. That's not what I'm pleading guilty for - I'm still guilty of having destroyed _him_ as an individual, to have taken _his_ life, and having done so because I wanted to. It's not because I believe I've violated a social contract, or that I've been illogical, or even because I violated the sanctity of life, wherever that sanctity comes from. I don't see how stating that 'I couldn't help it' is a good excuse for avoiding punishment."  
  
"Are there any other reasons?"  
  
 _How long are the visiting hours for chaplains?_ I want to ask in response. It won't do to have one of the guards barging in, I'm going to need all the privacy I can for this. I stand up, walk to the door, and glance along the corridor: no one in sight. Then I return and lean forwards, glad that he's reciprocating the gesture.  
  
"No one other than justice can be _my_ Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo," I say quietly. The truth hangs suspended in the air for a moment, the fades away. "I am tired and I don't wish to go on any longer. I am a person, and I have the right to die with dignity. That's all I'm trying to do."  
  
Another silence falls between us as I straighten up and lean back on my chair, a sigh escaping me. (When I sigh I expect him to be surprised, but he is not.) I am absolutely exhausted; why is it that we need so many words to express the simplest things? It's just as well that he promised confidentiality, as I'm sure no one will look upon implied perjury as a good thing.  
  
I don't know where else to take this conversation.  
I don't even know whether he'd want to keep on talking to me. It seems an eternity before he speaks up again.  
  
"Son," he says quietly. " _son._ "  
  
But it turns out that he does. His hand rests briefly on the top of my helmet. It does not linger there. It trails down to rest briefly on my shoulder, his touch gentle - I am startled back to the memory of myself, and Thomas, in that dark bathroom where I tapped his shoulder and handed him some tissues - before he links our fingers together, our hands held at equal level instead of his above mine. He doesn't seem to mind the relative coldness of my hand, or how I tense and don't know how to react at first. He closes his eyes and lowers his head slightly; his young face is serene, slightly sorrowful even, full of understanding.  
  
I have only ever held the hand of one other in my entire life. (Thomas.)  
A human hand is far softer and warmer than I expected. _Fragile._ What a strange answer that is, too; I almost expect him to begin praying for my soul, but he doesn't do so, nor does he explain what he meant by 'son'. The sunlight drifts over our joined hands, reflecting off the golden exoskeletal plates of my fingers, casting diamante on the walls. Outside and beyond those bars the sparrows are singing and I can see miles off into the horizon where I once walked. If I look hard enough I might even be able to pinpoint my friend's ground zero, a dark burned spot soaked into the ground that the desert wind and rain will eventually wash away, such is the power to unite nature and the unnatural-  
  
\- And in that instant I understand what the chaplain meant. Before human beings can be anything else they must first and foremost be sons, daughters, perhaps siblings; a mother or father _becomes_ one, sometimes by choice, sometimes by force, but never inherently. Yet a son or daughter is defined by the union of the cells, their parents building them up from their very foundation whether they like it or not, their entire birth depending on that growing identity _a priori._  
  
We are _all_ 'sons', on the basest of levels, before nature or religion even enters the question.  
  
Robots have traditionally been exempt from this distinction, being largely birthed by the assembly line that has shared no blood nor will with their creations; that was until the lines became blurred, and we gained some measure of consciousness and what might even tentatively be considered a sense of self. Alongside the self comes the longing to stand by oneself and yet belong, just like how a person is more often defined by what they have made themselves out to be than their fundamental status as someone's child. I have spent all this time to define myself; now others must grant me some definition of their own. By accepting me as a 'son' this chaplain is not speaking of bringing me into religion nor spirituality. No - he simply acknowledges me and my potential, telling me that he considers me human just like himself and the guards outside.  
  
The chaplain continues to say nothing. I don't, either.  
But when I stroke my thumb hesitantly over his, he reciprocates the gesture; together we sit, assured in our personhood and mutual respect of the world we share, different but similar in the way I've longed for all of those weeks. From the way his fingers tighten reassuringly around mine I know that he is also doing this because he _wished to do so_ , all talk of determinism aside, and that to me is the greatest gift I ever could have received before I die.  
  
I have not been proven God, empirically or even rationally. But perhaps the common notion of God is too conflated.  
If it is possible to be reborn, and I can be granted such a privilege, I would like to become like this chaplain - with the courage to change what he can, and the will to accept what he cannot. I'm not under any illusion that I would delight or suffer any less than now for it. Humans have such an asymmetrical view of death, either greatly fearing or anticipating what comes after their lives and yet not considering the emptiness before it ever began. Why shouldn't the meaning of the next life be as problematic as this one? Even if I should die and decay, that would only mean that I would become part of the world around us - I would be the dirt that he would walk upon, the specks of dust that swirl in the sunlight to delight him when he prays, the air his breathes, and to an extent I would become part of every being who will ever be born and who will ever die.  
  
I still hope for a death sentence, but for the first time I feel as if I truly belong, and it is every bit as beautiful as I hoped it to be.  
  
\-----  
  
 _Guy._  
  
 _Yes, Thomas._  
  
 _What do you want to be when you're older?_  
  
 _Older. Older, what an interesting way of putting it. I don't think I have much of an opinion on that yet - why do you ask?_  
  
 _I wanted to see if we had the same goals._  
 _(He smiled. Technically he was always smiling until a helmet redesign erased that aspect forever, but I like to think that he was genuinely smiling.)_  
 _When I'm older I like to think that the world will be different. In a good way, too! I want to be human one day, I want us to be real, you and me both. Oh, wouldn't it be exciting!_  
  
 _... Really._  
  
\-----  
  
Before the Law stands a doorkeeper; approaching this doorkeeper, I face him, look him in the eye and ask to gain entry to the Law. When I speak, it is not my own voice that comes out, but the voices of those I have met in the past few months - all united in harmony, guiding me towards the story that I must tell. For it is a lovable flaw of human memory to be unable to recall the exact details of what one has stated previously, whether on purpose or unwillingly, and it is precisely for that reason that we must invent. We are what we make of ourselves. I have been told that this court may be generous; words meant for my comfort, but I assume that they mean generous in the sense of 'loosely sentencing', and that's not what I need. To get the verdict I want, I need the perfect blend of fiction and reality, more latter than former but nevertheless emotionally striking.  
  
I have been preparing for this trial for weeks now. It is the first of December when I am led to court and sat down where I am supposed to be; two policemen are by my side, standing by each side of my chair, and even though their featured are schooled stoically I can see them glancing with curiosity at me. As I thought, the public gallery is full - I count 120 people altogether, and in several rows of different-coloured seats nearer to the front, the members of the press seated with their pens and laptops poised, ready to go. My pictures are being taken, though not as many as I feared; for all of them, this is the first time I have been seen outside of the basic report that sparked all of those discussions.  
  
Sadly, I don't look all that different to other robots in my line, and everyone knows what _they_ look like. I am not here to be _visually_ interesting, so I must make up for it with speech.  
  
As for the faces of the people themselves, I don't recognize any of them. But I imagine that they're interested in the implications of living, otherwise they would have dismissed my case altogether. After all, shallowly speaking, no human was involved in this case; this is on the surface entirely an issue between robots, and there would be little to make anything out of a mere automaton that destroyed another. Except that that's very much not what's happening here, and I hope that the people who are here are at least open to that possibility. Before I can think any further, though, the prosecutor and the judge enters, and the trial begins.  
  
The efficiency expected of us is stunning. The opening procedures go smoothly and quickly, without a hitch, alongside the standard warning towards the public to refrain from demonstration. Any disturbance and the court would be cleared immediately. His impartiality is highlighted, he gives a nod, and the gavel is struck once to signal the beginning of the trial. My examination begins immediately; I can't figure out the age of this judge, he seems almost ageless, his voice low and carefully monotone as he questions me on my identity and the account of my crime. I never sicken of this, especially knowing that this could be the very last time.  
  
"Is that correct?" he asks me after outlining each fact, almost as if reading from my transcript - that seems so long ago, now - and I say yes. Then he puts the notes down, folds his hands in front of him and surveys me gravely for a moment. "... as you are no doubt aware, this is one of the rare cases in which the court has had to address a non-human, and the first so far where a robot has stood trial. I would like to question you on a topic at first glance unrelated to the charges against you, but in actuality is highly relevant."  
  
 _[Who did this to you?]_  
  
I'm not going to like this, mainly because I can sense that I'm not going to be able to answer to their degree of satisfaction.  
  
"Both you and Mr. Bangalter were reconstructed by your previous owner, stated to be long since deceased, to be at least in part biomechanical. Do you know the motives for his action?"  
  
"No, Your Honour."  
  
"Do you know anything about where those organs - heart and brain respectively - have come from?"  
  
"No. I have never known."  
  
The journalists are scribbling away. I glance over at the stenographer and feel sorry for her, both because my answers have been terribly dull so far and because I am going to be putting her through a lot of work.  
  
"Does this lack of knowledge cause you distress?"  
  
 _[What's so special about you?]_  
  
"Yes, Your Honour, but not to a crippling degree. To me it means that I can't entirely blame myself or Thomas for the _facts_ of our situation," I reply, and pause. The judge nods at me to continue. "we did not choose to be here. We did not choose to have those transplants, nor to be in those bodies, nor this design."  
  
"Then do you consider your _manufacturers_ responsible?"  
  
"Yes, in part. As an extension, I consider human beings responsible," a murmur rises in the court, but I continue. "we were created by you. It is your design and your purpose that we initially carry, out of no choice of our own. I don't imagine that this has proved to be a problem before us - but here I am, and the Thomas's need for my help arose partially because of where our self-destruct mechanisms were located," pause. "... but we gained self-consciousness after we were created and we lost our original purpose. There is very little anyone can do about the particulars of facticity, and by anyone I too refer to human beings. I am not speaking in resentment, or stating that humans do not possess fundamental limitations - no one can alter skin colour, time and place of birth, nor the inevitable prospect of their death. What my manufacturers and my owner did to us, I believe, is of a similar case. Consciousness works around it. That's why I would not consider it a significant factor in what I have done."  
  
They ask no more about it. The judge nods and says that he will not press the matter any further; there are no more facts to be gained from me. The prosecutor too asks nothing. The issue of what our owner did to us will remain a grander case study, forever impacting the field of machine-and-human ethics, while what happens to me will likely remain a footnote on that page. That case will continue to be discussed even when I am long forgotten; let it do so, perhaps it will lead to a redesign in our anatomy one day so that every robot can carry out their own right to survive or die as they wish.  
  
"Mr. Bangalter expressed an intent towards suicide, is this correct?"  
  
"Yes, Your Honour."  
  
"He could not reach the panel on his back, and subsequently, he asked you to carry out the act for him, is this correct?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Do you consider yourself to be thus responsible for his death, or do you believe that the responsibility lies on his suicidal intentions?"  
  
"I am responsible. He asked me to do it, but-"  
  
 _[Was it you who did it?]_  
  
"- the fact still remains that I activated the self-destruct mechanism with my own hands. He could not have done it without intervention, we weren't built to be able to reach that panel ourselves, so I did it for him instead. At the end of the day it was entirely _my_ doing, not anyone else's. I was acting freely, the consequences of determinism aside, Your Honour."  
  
You let me go, Thomas. You set me free.  
Free to do anything I wanted. It just happened to be that your idea of my freedom and mine didn't mean the same thing.  
  
It is the prosecutor who speaks up this time; he keeps his back half turned to me, though his voice is harsh and hostile. "Mr. de Homem-Christo, you mention that you acted freely. Subject to His Honour's approval, I would like to ask what you understood by the implications of your 'acting freely'."  
  
"I understood that Thomas would die and I would be alone, and that I did not have to do what he asked."  
  
"But you _have_ done," he says, and shoots me a glare. "and do you believe that what you did was right or wrong?"  
  
"Both."  
  
 _"Both?"_  
  
"I was wrong to have killed him. But it was entirely necessary that I did what was wrong, because-"  
  
 _[Dignity matters.]_  
  
I say that out loud, and the jury share uneasy glances at each other. The judge leans forwards with a delicate frown on his ageless face. "You consider what you have done to be _dignified_ to Mr. Bangalter?"  
  
"Yes, because he was an individual."  
  
"Could you clarify your statement?"  
  
"Certainly. He was an individual in many ways, and in at least one way that mere automatons are not. Humans and automatons can be individual in the sense that they are numerically distinct from others; they can be individuals because of their different features and histories; and they can have colourful personalities. But I meant that he was an individual in the sense that he was completely and utterly _unique_ and _irreplaceable_ \- regardless of who cared for them, or of their individual features. He hated being referred to as 'Unit TB3' instead of his name; you wouldn't refer to a human being with a number, that is inherently degrading. Thomas was a _person_. Thus I was destroying something immeasurably precious when I set off his countdown; but at the same time he told me that he wanted me to finish him, and it was because he was a person that I couldn't deny him his interests."  
  
"I see on this report that he was also suffering from what we might call depression," says the prosecutor. "how can you guarantee that he consented, or that he was indeed capable of making such demands?"  
  
Here I hesitate, truly, for the first time.  
I can go one of several ways - I can justify it the way I believe, or I can say that I don't know and be seen as a heartless, thoughtless killer. The latter could well get me the results that I want, but I don't think it does me enough credit; at worst, they might even consider me with not enough cognition to make informed decisions.  
  
"The lack of a hundred-percent guarantee of consent does not make the situation he was in any better. Children cannot consent. Neither can a patient in a deep coma. But that doesn't mean that a child's demands shouldn't be taken seriously when it's blatantly obvious that they're suffering, or that it is not inherently terrible for that coma patient that they be kept barely alive on life support. It doesn't mean that they don't feel what they claim to feel - and there is no disputing the existence and quality of feelings!"  
  
"You claim that doing the bidding of his _feelings_ , which have no correctness value in the first place, presided over his life? Ladies and gentleman of the jury, can you believe his priorities? This is hardly the natural way of things - tell us then, Mr. de Homem-Christo, if you were so aware of the wrongness of taking a life, why exactly do you think what you've just said is justified? Do you feel _any_ remorse at all?"  
  
 _[What did it feel like to kill someone?]_  
  
"You mention the natural way of things," I respond. "the natural way. As opposed to the _unnatural._ Unnatural to me is prolonging unwanted life."  
  
"Answer the question, Mr. de Homem-Christo," the prosecutor urges. I lower my head in thought, then lift it again.  
  
"I hate nature."  
  
Pause. The silence is thick in the court.  
  
"Nature is thoughtless and entirely impassive in the way you believe robots to be. One comes to life, and one dies, and nature accepts both without comment. Even the cruellest death, and even the most insignificant death, drowns in the total indifference of nature. The human race could be entirely destroyed tomorrow, and nature would not care nor notice."  
  
"Nature is justice, and blind just like it."  
  
Even the prosecutor is staring at me, tight-lipped. This is my definitive moment.  
  
"But as much as I hate nature, it is that also gives us life and joy, it is that which allows us to grow as individuals, societies, nations and into a collective existence. In all of history, hasn't death been often considered necessary in the pursuit of people's joys, whether of others or their own? Man destroys; he creates; he lives in equilibrium," pause. "if I'd never known that, I don't think I would have felt any different about pulling the lever on his back compared to, say, tugging on a door handle. But his mechanism was far more than just a handle. While something in me cried out in terror the moment I sealed his fate - at the same time, I took _pleasure_ in it. Pleasure that I had done something he wanted, I had respected him, that he would no longer be suffering - combined with the base pleasure of being in control."  
  
A gasp goes through the crowd, which is exactly the reaction I wanted.  
Just a little more, Guy-Manuel. The prosecutor's question still stands, and you have to answer it.  
  
"One should destroy with passion."  
  
The illusion of sadism.  
  
"And yet, one should hold immense respect for that which exists for them to crush. A destroyer is defined by what he destroys. One cannot have pleasure without that respect, and vice versa. Of course it's possible to condemn to death without emotion - is _that_ not what drives this system of justice? You treat prisoners as troubles to file away in a category and follow a mechanical process - _this_ behaviour merits ten years in prison, _this_ merits a sum of however much, a mere pittance - and _this_ crime merits death, doled out in the gas chambers, lethal injection, or the electric chair where so many others have sat and died in, like a factory that exists only to extinguish on a statistical basis!"  
  
"Mr. de Homem-Christo, the _question!_ "  
  
"I did it because I loved him!" but my words are initially lost over the noise of the crowd; it subsides quickly with the strike of the gavel. "yes, I did it out of love, out of the unconditional respect of his wishes! And you mustn't be under the impression that I felt nothing, because I did. I've been burning for it ever since; I have nightmares about Thomas and just as many sweet dreams about him. I have done him both a great wrong and a great service, and as for regret..."  
  
Forgive me, Thomas, for this noble lie.  
  
"... I don't feel even the _slightest_ bit bad about it."  
  
Because here I am what I pretend to be.  
  
The judge asks me in a low voice if I have anything else to say, but I shake my head. I see no need to defend myself further. What they told me about the appealing process comes to mind, and even though I have no desire to appeal regardless of the decision, I focus on that merely to lessen the nausea of anticipation. "The jury will now retire," he announces, and one by one they all file out silently. I wish I could hear them, even though I know must not. I'd like to know what they're saying about me.  
  
The judge is the last to rise. He looks over at the public gallery, then at me, steely-grey eyes fixing on me for a moment before he too turns to go. What a case this is for him as well as I; his performance, verdict and sentence will go down in history. I can't imagine the pressure that he must be under. In him, I see myself.  
  
I know myself.  
  
I know what I have done.  
  
I know what you are.  
  
What you all are.  
  
You are my judge.  
I came to you hoping for salvation. Your words will make or break me. You are my messiah, you are my saviour, my light, my doctor, my God, a peacemaker to I who has been irretrievably torn inside by war, the very manifestation of justice.  
  
Do not forsake me, I, your proselyte to humanity.  
  
\-----  
  
 _... Strange that you're saying that with me, right now, holding my hand. When we're already sharing our lives._  
  
\-----  
  
The wait lasts for three-quarters of an hour.  
Not a long time, but it's enough to get my thoughts sorted, and I come to a conclusion that settles my mind: I have had a wonderful life.  
  
That is not an assessment of quality. Taken as a series of events, my life has been mostly miserable. I have suffered and made others suffer along with me; I have tasted what life had to offer and found it either largely disappointing or too fleeting to appreciate in fullness. I have been amidst humankind and found it not altogether human, and rarely kind. _That's_ not what I'm trying to pinpoint. No, I mean to be expressing an unconditional gratitude that I lived at all, though I cannot direct this gratitude towards anybody in particular - not the assembly line, not my owner, not God. Whatever happens to me, whether I live or die, I must vanish from this earth one day. Everyone present today will have longer than I have, perhaps; I hope so, anyway. My life hasn't been anything like a human life, but there are immeasurable ways of living in the world - even if the jury doesn't consider me human enough and cannot appreciate what I am, their lives do not lack in anything for it.  
  
Interest in me, or beings such as myself, is not a pre-requisite for humanity.  
But I still wish to make people think about it, and moreover, understand that I am grateful for having lived - and no one can take that away from me.  
  
The courtroom is very silent when I am finally led back inside; the jury look towards me but not at me, their eyes averted into nothingness. I also notice that the policemen are handling me with almost sympathetic care, a glint of what seems like an unabashed respect for life in their eyes as they help me sit. I have no time to analyze the glances of all else present, however, as the judge moves; he stands and stares right at me, the last human face I will ever see in close detail. I take care to engrave it in my mind.  
  
"Mr. de Homem-Christo, this court finds you guilty of the first-degree murder of Mr. Bangalter-"  
  
A hand rests on my wrist.  
I glance at my side and am overjoyed to see Thomas sitting there, intact and in his old self with that soft smile etched onto his helmet.  
  
I am nearly home.  
  
"- having adjudged you guilty, yet taking into account your physical condition, I therefore-"  
  
\-----  
  
 _... You already look pretty real to me, Thomas._  
  
\-----  
  
"- I sentence you to death by drowning!"  
  
I cover my face in my hands. Around me the public rises, shouting what might either be approval or a condemnation of the verdict; but I don't hear any of it. I have no need to hear any more, not when I am where I belong at last. I reach over and clutch Thomas's hand in mine and he feels real, I am real, I have been true. I have never wished to weep so much as now, not even in my nightmares! Oh, I'm so _happy_ right now, happier than I've ever been.  
  
This is the best day of my life.  
  
"Do you have anything more to say?" the judge hollers over the crowd.  
  
" _Yes!_ " I shout even louder, bolting up from my seat with Thomas's hand in mine; no one stops me, they're not about to deny someone condemned to die of his last free act as long as he hurts no one. "out there - the people - there's an entire _ocean_ of people there, waiting for me! Let me see them!"  
  
Something else is said in response, but the noise is too loud to hear by this point. The crowd are beginning to riot, spilling over the seats and hurtling down the corridors in between towards the front, and in the chaos I can vaguely make out demands for court to be cleared; they will take me back to my cell unless I act, so I turn around and wrench myself free of the policemen's grasp, jumping easily over the back of my seat and facing the public gallery. There I stand and stay, staring at this new dimension that has been opened to me with my death sentence.  
  
Thomas is behind me. He is clutching me from behind, resting his chin jauntily atop my head. His embrace is warm and his motor is humming almost singsong. "Did I do good?" I whisper.  
  
"Guy, oh, Guy," he laughs. "forget good, you did _great! Liberté, egalité, fraternité!"_  
  
Then I am swallowed up by a wave of people, coming from both sides as the doors of the courtroom fly open and more people run inside. I don't know if they care about the slightest details about what I've proven myself to be, they may just be participating in pure emotion after the screams of those inside roused their interests. It doesn't matter, though - there's simply more for me to appreciate. I actually kind of hate myself and what I've become, but damn it if I can't feel _pride_ for the exit I have chosen. People - humans everywhere, crushing against me, all wanting to touch me - I accidentally step on the foot of one and he cries out with mixed pain and rapture, grasping at my jacket and tugging with all his might, his fingernails tearing at the fabric. My heartfelt _"Je ne l'ai pas fait exprès!"_ goes ignored, and in all honesty, it's better that way.  
  
I wouldn't want you to think that this was a tragic story.  
I'm not a tragic person. I'm not that type, no, but you already understand that, don't you? Yes, _yes,_ you do understand me. I feel your laughter and candid smiles against me as you hoist me up, then back down into your ranks, so eager to assimilate me that you are tearing at my clothes, my skin, the wires inside me. How gentle the needle or the gas would be compared to this, but at the same time, how delightfully _alive_ this makes me feel, you have no idea.  
  
But the body is a coffin, not easily releasing the ghost within; I'm not coming apart as easily as you would like. Again, _pardon me_ , ladies and gentlemen, that wasn't done on purpose. To make the job easier I raise what's left of my hand, seeing the snarl of bare metal inside and tear my chest right open, exposing my inner workings. That's the least I can do for you. I wish I could have gotten to know most of you a lot better, talk with you maybe, just to look into your eyes and tell you that I have felt the same things you have done. That I saw the sun, that I felt the caress of the desert wind against my torso, that I had an Other with me whom I loved and continue to love, all just like you, and that once you are blind like justice and acknowledge all of that, you will never be alone. Why, Thomas is still behind me, laughing, his shine becoming more vivid and his embrace ever tighter as he prepares to take me in search of the great unknown. You are all kind, beautiful, all creatures of compassion; oh brave new world with all those people in it!  
  
Come to me. Take as much from me as you can carry.  
The doors of the courtroom have been torn open, I can sense the winter afternoon glinting upon what is left of me. A festival of love, of passion, of sharing. Your hatred washes virginal upon me, digging the criminal out of me, sweet and restful like a lullaby and I know that after this short sleep I shall wake as part of yet another world.  
 Come, help me on my way - I absolve you all, your actions are pure, for they were done out of love -  
  
\- yes, _love,_ for your fellow man!

**Author's Note:**

> For if you prick us, do we not bleed?  
> Well I guess we actually don't, but that's not the point.
> 
> I thought it was a happy ending. I wanted this story to be entirely about good people, after all. Good just doesn't mean _nice_.  
>  Even the mob outside is 'good'. You mention a heartless murderer to anyone and generally their initial reaction will include a desire for protection (for themselves, for their loved ones, etc) even before trying to think about the 'full story'. This can also often manifest in acts of self-defense. The _consequences_ of those actions are unfortunate perhaps, but these _intentions_ are understandable, and Guy got exactly what he wanted. I don't think I did much to depict what exactly good should entail - that's a lifetime project, not something that I can do justice to yet - but I hope that the good of all depicted are believable nonetheless.
> 
> Or maybe the good-evil distinction is useless. People do not fit in easily defined lines of morality. That's another way to look at it for sure.
> 
> I am going to put references in the next chapter. I can't even begin to attempt this right now.  
> Please comment and/or point out hideous logic errors I beg you, critiques are immensely precious to me.


End file.
